


Mirror

by Arlyshawk



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Caretaking, F/M, Prophecy, Prophetic Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4799138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlyshawk/pseuds/Arlyshawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Alysanne's mirror begins to call to her as she works, a vision comes to her and causes havoc. Solas helps her through the shock of it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror

Her mirror whispers to her in the wee hours of the morning. It's a hissing sound, many voices in many cadences swirling around her ears while she works, stripping lavender from its stalks by rubbing it together over a basin. Alysanne shakes the lavender petals from her hands, leaving her work where it laid, and goes to the towering mirror that she keeps hidden away with a sheet. It seems too early since her previous vision for something to surfacing. She shakes her head; this is nothing, this is her mind playing tricks. 

Yet as she pulls the dusty sheet from the mirror, a plume of age flying in her face, there is a part of her that says differently. Any reflective surface will allow her mind's eye to open - water, mirrors, stone, even steel. She finds a mirror is easiest, because in it she can see herself, see what will be or what has been. Her late Keeper - her predecessor - often claimed that the gift of visions is more a curse than a blessing. 

Alysanne sits before the mirror, who's gilded ivy vines reach toward the darkness in the ceiling with glistening, buttery fingers, she sees the reflective surface ripple and distort. And in a second, it surges forward like a wolf catching the scent of a wounded animal. Once, she might've screamed but now she lets the silvery darkness take her, a mother cradling her hysterical child from the demons that want to possess it. 

When the silver clears, shadows greet her, oily and singing with voices that speak in a language that is not of this earth or of ancient times. They're encircling a pale, speckled mare, who screams and fights the air madly. There is horror in the mare's eyes when it kicks at a shadow, but it only divides to take a hold of a hoof. Her stomach knots up when she is forced to watch the mare fall to the ground, screaming for its life. The darkness swallows her and pulls her into another world, another fate. 

This time she sees a great wheel, whose spokes are golden and etched with elven while two beasts perch themselves upon the top. One of them is a lynx, eyes bright like stars and coat tawny like leather. The second is a wolf, black as night with eyes of amber-gold. As she traces the wheel with her finger, the lynx growls above her and then tumbles from its perch with a yelp. The wolf regards the lynx curiously at first, but then sits. 

_This is wrong, this feels terrible,_ Alysanne thinks as the creatures grapple for control of the wheel though never truly fighting, in fact.. It's a game. One pushes the other, but the one that falls hoists itself back up with the other's help. Even still the sight of makes her gut clench. 

A scream rips from her throat when someone pulls her from the mirror's grasp and sends her skittering backward into a table leg, cracking her skull on it. She curses, rubbing the blossoming sore spot on her head while her vision fights to recollect itself. It blurs and dances, candlelight swirling together with the shadowed corners to make her stomach roll. She coughs when bile crawls up the back of her throat but nothing comes up, nothing but the images of the wheel and the screaming mare on the backs of her eyelids. 

"I apologize, Alysanne," Solas's voice warps in her ears, but she can hear the notes of concern in the cadence. His form is a blur, the grey and white of the fur coat he wears swirls with the paleness of his skin and the green of his tunic. His hand pushes back her hair, "You are pale." 

"Solas.. The mirror.." She manages as her world attempts to darken with bated breath. If the mirror cannot see her, it will stop reaching for her - crying, pining for her to come back. If she had been smarter, perhaps… 

~.~.~ 

Alysanne awakens to the sound of humming. It's soft and low, a melody of a place that is in silent ruins. A quill scratches across parchment and she can smell cedar and earth. It's _familiar._

Cracking open her eyes, she sees pale, sky blue witchlight illuminating a drawing on a wall done carefully with charcoal. When she tries to sit up, her head begins to feel as if it is drowning, pain blooming behind her eyes and blood pounds in her ears. She curls back into her former spot, huddling underneath the furs and watches Solas in the far side of the rotunda. 

He is pacing, a sort of methodical walk that she has grown accustomed to when he thinks. The steps are louder than any that he ever takes, perhaps to mimic a rhythm while he folds his hands or touches the frescos he's painted so meticulously. He is a hound in a cage like this, striding up and down the length of his desk, around it, even pulling on the sleeve of his robe. 

As he picks up a shard - something that Eowyn found while in the Emerald Graves - he frowns and growls quietly before wrapping it back up in a velvet cloth. His pace grows more concerned; there is a slump to his shoulders all at once and then he shakes his head. Her heart clenches in worry for him. Solas has never witnessed her scry before - though few have - the thought of seeing her in such a way must have terrified him. 

"Solas, you may cease your pacing now," She says carefully, though her voice aches. He stops all at once, feet skidding on the stone and turns to face her, face morphing from concern to confusion to, lastly, relief. He kneels beside her and takes the hand she offers, though it trembles. He has warm hands, callused on the palm rather than the fingertips like a hunter's might. 

"How are you feeling, _vhenan_?" Solas enquires and touches her forehead with his free hand. Ice magic crackles on his fingertips before his magic greets her. His magic is different; not quite as fragile as that of Dorian or Vivienne's. It's not Circle magic, it's not something that was whipped into a _proper_ sense of self. His magic is tougher, older, warmer. A ghostly smile creases his mouth when she lets him in. 

She squeezes his hand when he hits a bundle of nerves that hiss at the coolness of his hand. Closing her eyes, she whispers, "I am sorry you had to see me in such a state. I should have locked the door." 

"Locking the door might have posed a bigger problem. Never returning from the world beyond ours is often considered dangerous," He answers and taps at her neck so she can raise it. He sits at her head, letting her rest her head in his lap. She frowns, knowing he is correct. "Eowyn might have had executed me if I had not saved you." 

Alysanne scoffs, "Are we thinking of the same Inquisitor? She is harmless." 

"To those that pose no threat, yes. You witnessed her fury during the battle for Haven, the wrath of a lioness protecting her pride," Solas cards his fingers through her dark hair, undoing the braids that sit at the back of her head. "If you had gone missing, or were harmed by that mirror - who is to say that she would make me a pincushion?" 

"I think you are over thinking everything, _emma lath_ ," She chuckles and bites off the urge to cough when he circles the point of her ear to fit a section of hair behind it. A smile comes to her lips when Solas undoes a series of tangles. 

And for a long while they are quiet. The rotunda seems partly alive to her; the ravens are squabbling in the highest point over whatnot, Dorian is throwing books onto the floor in an attempt to reorganize them, the witchlight thrums low - all is calm. A peace that is seen - much less felt - in Skyhold since Haven's burial. It reminds her of sleepy days in her youth, before her magic came, when she would play with the halla and the other children. 

"Mayhaps it is wrong of me to ask," Solas interrupts her reverie and she opens her eyes to peer up at him. Confusion twists his face, furrowing his brow and darkening his eyes. "But what did you see in the mirror?" 

Her eyes go wide at the thought and the words that she knows are the truth stick in her throat. She tenses, muscles growing taut all too quickly. The thoughts burn in her mind, "A mare.. A pale mare fighting shadows that could not be harmed. There was a wheel as well…" 

"A wheel?" 

"A gilded wheel that had two creatures balancing on its top. The two fought for power, though it was not _truly_ a fight. It was a game.. Something of a game." 

He says nothing after that, only giving her a smile. She rises up like a tide and kisses him on the cheek before cuddling back into the nest of furs, being lulling back to sleep by his fingers through her hair and the soft hum of an ancient song in her ears. 


End file.
